State and Local Taxes: Confiscation for "The Children"

You may have seen this diagram before. I thought it appropriate to repeat because of the recent trend to show pictures and I won't make as many typos. The reason pictures are better than words is because you get exhausted typing up words.

So, all the gnashing of teeth about government and high taxes are, in a sense, misdirected. Of course, rarely those who run for office are worthy people and one should unroot the self-dealing politicians with personality defects.

(There is something to micro-expression theory, it seems)

62% of tax revenue is spent in the public schools.  Think about that as you drive by your massive local campus, at least outside the cities. Think about that as you compare your car to those found in the teacher's lot.

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Teachers come from teacher colleges where they learn teaching methods, not their subject, and are absorbed into the leftist, union paradigm. They like to hang inane banners in the halls.

The first year the statewide Massachusetts' teacher's test, for new graduates I believe, was given more than half FAILED. They were tested on competence in their area! You can see why teacher unions object to standardized tests. The recent terrible marks of students in New York State brought a union response that the teachers didn't have the ability to "prepare." You know what that means.

The teacher school graduates eventually become members of the school board in your town, they hire principals (statistically, a former gym teacher), they present political correctness, intellectual intolerance, amorality, and, worst of all, a lack of enthusiasm for learning.  They do protect children from the evils of religious notions of morality. They tell you cannot discuss morality as the Constitution bars discussion of religion in public schools, except, of course, Islam. I still haven't found that in the Constitution.

Part of the high cost of the schools is the copy machine and supplies. As the general rule is each class sits and does matching columns and fill in the blanks every day, at least, in the lower grades. This is astounding.

A friend who was a the operational manager of a school district mentioned the largest cost is busing. In the old days, an educated person taught substantive matters to small classes in the neighborhood; now, we have institutions run on the prison model where a massive bus system exists to twice a day carry the inmates.

To put public school spending in perspective, we compare it to estimated total expenditures in local private schools. We find that, in the areas studied, public schools are spending 93 percent more than the estimated median private school.   Cato Institute  (and note the "median" private school number reduces the actual cost by eliminating very high tuition schools.)

Steven Jobs, back in the 1990s, told Wired Magazine that he sent his child to a private school and paid three thousand dollars, as I recall, more than the cost generated by a local public school. He asked, comparing public and private schools: would you spend an extra $3,000 to send your child to one of the best schools in the world?

Of further interest, he also stated that he was responsible for the worldwide use of the computer in school, more than anyone, and it was an educational mistake. To my experience, computers are an expensive form of baby sitting, just like matching columns.

Compare all this with the chatter you hear from teachers you know.  In the teacher's room they talk about their coming vacation, their tier, and target date of retirement.

You can see why the "teachers" in Wisconsin trespassed in the state's legislature, setup picket lines, and whined about the importance of education for the all-purpose totem: the children. Leftist unions of all sorts, from many states, actually brought on a recall election because the state decided not to require workers to be in the union.  They lost the election.

Al Schanker, who most people don't remember, was the father of the teachers' union movement in the 1960s. He was a communist from the University of Chicago who twice failed to obtain his PhD, even there; it was, as I recall from long ago, on Marx.

Teachers' unions are engaged in a leftist conspiracy to transfer property from productive home owners to fund socialists and their efforts. The average teacher, generally trying their best to be a professional, is, sadly, a useful idiot. The unions get them extremely good salaries and benefits. The union, generally forced on the teacher, gets its "taste."

There is likely no fixing this problem save the encroaching collapse of the economy. In the meantime, if you still care, home school and run for the local school board. The battle for the future begins in thousands of school board elections. The elite will have their Obama and Bush in the phony election game, but change will come from the bottom up.